A Stranger Saved This Woman's Life By Identifying a Cancerous Mole

A New Zealand woman credits a stranger with identifying her skin cancer.

Christine Burnie, 47, was in line at a hardware store when the man behind her in line pointed out a suspicious mole on her back.

"[He] said to me, 'Excuse me, love, you know you have a black mole on your back you should be really concerned about'," Burnie told NZ Herald.

Burnie thought the man might be hitting on her. But when he told her about his niece who had died at the age of 25, she realized he was "very genuine and very caring."

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She went to the doctor the following week, and a biopsy confirmed that the mole was indeed invasive malignant melanoma. She had the mole, and a nearly 2-inch patch of skin, removed in mid-January. Tests came back clear: the cancer had not spread.

"Doctors told me if I had left it another six months it could have spread to other parts of my body and I could have been in a scary situation," Burnie told Stuff.co.nz.